This past November the New Safe Confinement structure or Sarcophagus 2 was moved into its final resting place over the original “object shelter” build to entomb the destroyed reactor and the nearly 20,000 tons of plutonium and nuclear contaminated material. The reactor complex is now beginning the long awaited decommissioning process that will take nearly 30 years. Access to the city of Pripyat is getting more difficult as the buildings are beginning to collapse presenting risk to life for anyone who might enter. The zone is contaminated with Cesium 137, Strontium 90 and Iodine 129 as well as other radionuclides. It will be uninhabitable for more than 600 to 1,000 years. [Philip Grossman, @pgp.images, takes you behind the scenes of "Mysteries of the Abandoned: Chernobyl's Deadliest Secrets", Thurs, Aug 31st at 9pm EST on @ScienceChannel. Post 7/7]

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The city of Pripyat had been a thoroughly modern soviet city with a population of nearly 50,000 people at the time of the accident. It was also a young city with the average age being 28. It had a high birth rate with nearly 1,000 babies born there every year. It was original founded in 1970 and built specifically to house those that built and managed the nuclear power plant and their families.
After the accident the city of Pripyat and surrounding villages were “liquidated” which is a translation of the Soviet term for those who participant in liquidation of the Chernobyl NPP accident consequences. Over 500,000 liquidators were involved in the clean up of the accident. Much of that work was removing all the personal effects in the city and burying them in radioactive graveyards located throughout the zone. This was done in a haphazard way due to the high levels of radiation so much was dropped and left behind.
Some facilities were active during the clean-up and not fully liquidated. Something that you come across in lots of buildings are gas masks. The interesting fact is that they were not there because of the reactor complex, but because of fear that the United States and the west might attack the Soviet Union. It is an emotional experience to walk through the abandoned city.
• [Philip Grossman, @pgp.images, takes you behind the scenes of "Mysteries of the Abandoned: Chernobyl's Deadliest Secrets", Thurs, Aug 31st at 9pm EST on @ScienceChannel. Post 6/7]

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The gear used to document this hauntingly beautiful place had to capture the detail, color and emotion so I was selective. This could not be HD 8 Bit 4:2:0 50 Mbps, it had to be more. I worked with multiple cameras throughout the project, eventually arriving at RED EPIC-W because of it REDCODE CODEC and its ability to pull so much information out of the camera’s lens.
I was excited to shoot the reactor complex knowing I would be able to pull all the detail and color out of every available shot. Inside the reactor complex I didn’t have a lot of time to set up lights and making camera adjustments with gloves on is difficult, but knowing the amount of data that would be available to me in the REDCODE file provided an additional level of confidence that I would get the shot. •
[Philip Grossman, @pgp.images, takes you behind the scenes of "Mysteries of the Abandoned: Chernobyl's Deadliest Secrets", Thurs, Aug 31st at 9pm EST on @ScienceChannel. Post 5/7]

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A nuclear reactor is similar to most power plants in that it boils water to create steam that drives turbines to generate electricity. But instead of burning coal, oil or natural gas, it generated heat by splitting the atom of uranium. The amount of energy in a fingernails worth of Uranium is more then 50,000 barrels of oil. Nuclear power is the most dense form of energy on the planet. To put this in perspective, there are 7,658 power plants in the US. Ninety Nine (99) of them are Nuclear, yet they provide 20% of the power to the US grid. So 1.2% of the power plants in the US provide 20% of the power. And it is clean power, meaning it does not generate any CO2.
It does have drawbacks, primarily the radioactive waste generated as part of the fission process of uranium. Though new reactor technologies being develop will reduce the amount of waste produced and some of the new thorium salt reactors actually use nuclear waste as its fuel.
[Philip Grossman, @pgp.images, takes you behind the scenes of "Mysteries of the Abandoned: Chernobyl's Deadliest Secrets", Thurs, Aug 31st at 9pm EST on @ScienceChannel. Post 4/7]

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Over the 7 years and 10 trips, I have used 12 different camera’s and probably as many bags, tripods, gimbals, etc. I began shooting 4K in 2013 and on one trip shot 4K RAW (DNG) which required me to take 28 TB of hard drives to off load and store material. I swore I would never shoot RAW.
Of course, then I discovered REDCODE and that completely changed. I purchased my RED EPIC-W and have shot with it in the Chernobyl Zone and the even more exclusive Belarusian Zone.
My kit now includes:
RED EPIC-W
Two RED MiniMags (512 MB and 1 TB)
Two MiniMag Readers
Three (3) BlueShape 140W Granite Mini’s (amazing batteries)
Two (2) BlueShape D-Tap 6 amp Chargers
Canon 5D Mk4 or Panasonic GH4/5
Canon 24mm f1.4
Canon 50mm f1.2
Canon 16-35mm f2.8 MkIII (one of my favorite lenses for what I shoot)
Canon 24-70mm f2.8
Canon 70-200mm f2.8
Ikan E-Image GC102 Carbon Fiber Tripod
Ikan E-Image GH10L Fluid Tripod Head
Ikan EC1 Beholder hand held gimbal (for DSLR)
And all this fits into a FStop Gear SUKHA bag using a Large and Medium ICU with TrekPak Dividers. •
[Philip Grossman, @pgp.images, takes you behind the scenes of "Mysteries of the Abandoned: Chernobyl's Deadliest Secrets", Thurs, Aug 31st at 9pm EST on @ScienceChannel. Post 3/7]

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I grew up in Pennsylvania about 11 miles from the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant. I was in Mrs. Murray’s 3rd grade class when the most serious accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history happened at Three Mile Island Unit 2. It left an indelible mark on my interest in nuclear power and engineering in general. With that experience always in the back of my mind, I decided to document the Chernobyl Nuclear Zone.
While I know engineering was the cause of the accident, I think there could be more than just engineering defects involved. My investigation of this complex story involves reviewing the engineering, the geopolitical aspect and even a potential CIA plot as a variable that led to the accident.
After leaving my corporate career, I’ve done 10 expeditions to Chernobyl, spending over 100 days filming and documenting the remains of what was once a marvel of modern technology and a vibrant modern Soviet City. I met Casey Brumels the co-founder of Ping Pong Productions who suggested I consider shooting for television. •
[Philip Grossman, @pgp.images, takes you behind the scenes of "Mysteries of the Abandoned: Chernobyl's Deadliest Secrets", Thurs, Aug 31st at 9pm EST on @ScienceChannel. Post 2/7]

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On April 26, 1986 at 1:23 AM Unit Number 4 of the V.I. Lenin Nuclear Power Station as it was known during Soviet times (Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, ChNPP) suffered a catastrophic failure during what was supposed to be a routine test of the emergency system design. The city of Pripyat located about 2 miles from ChNPP and housed nearly 50,000 citizens was evacuated in 3 hours, but not until nearly 3 days after the accident. In total, nearly 300,000 people were relocated. Pripyat along with 192 other villages are now part of an area known as the Zone of Alienation or Zone of Exclusion an are over 1,000 square miles which is roughly the size of the state of Rhode Island.
I'm Philip Grossman, @pgp.images, taking over RED Digital Cinema's Instagram sharing my experience investigating the deadly secrets of Chernobyl. Tonight on @ScienceChannel, watch "Mysteries of the Abandoned: Chernobyl's Deadliest Secrets" at 9pm EST. Link in Bio.
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@shawnheinrichs using the RED EPIC-W 8K S35 to capture a time-lapse of late-afternoon thunderstorms rolling over 13,000 foot peaks.